


Shelter

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Human AU, M/M, Modern AU, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 04:59:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13674747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Genji Shimada, son of Japan's most notorious Yakuza family, did not think he'd spend the evening of White Day in an old Buddhist temple with a monk, nor that he'd find it quite so interesting to be stuck with him.





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> For Genyatta Week 2018, Prompt: Valentine's Day. Can you still call it a Modern AU when our time is actually the past to the people in canon... ?

“It’s just rain,” Genji said, rolling his eyes even as he tried to put a smile in his voice. 

“I don’t know,” Shiro muttered at the other end of the line. “My hair will be all out of order when I arrive. Let’s just do it some other time.”

Even though he’d only fucked this guy twice, Genji already knew that tone. It wasn’t convince-me, it was I-can’t-be-bothered-to-get-up. Of course, he still wanted Genji to do some pleading to stroke his ego, even if he wasn’t going to come, but that wouldn’t happen. The sex wasn’t _that_ good.

“Alright. Some other time, then,” Genji said curtly.

Before Shiro could give an answer, Genji hung up on him, glancing up at the sky from where he stood under the sloping roof of the Chinese restaurant. It did look a bit like the apocalypse would start any minute, to be fair, and he did not fancy walking to the train station while the rain poured like a waterfall. One of his family’s men had taken him here in his car and he’d banked on going home with Shiro, who lived only a short way away, so now he didn’t have any transportation of his own.

Genji turned the box of white chocolate he was carrying in his hands – since their date had fallen on White Day, it had seemed like a funny gesture. Obviously he could get one of the unending stream of lackeys looking to get into his father’s good graces to pick him up, but the one who’d brought him had been in the area on business, so he wouldn’t be available, and whoever else he called would first have to drive out here. Chances were that he’d be stuck waiting for a while, then, but he wasn’t hungry and there was nothing here at the edge of town but residential homes and this restaurant.

However, as he looked around, Genji noted that wasn’t actually true. One building stuck out between the others, an old Buddhist shrine set a few feet away from the newly paved road. Well, it was a better place to wait than in front of a restaurant, anyway. He texted the address with a note to look for the old temple and pick him up to one of the bootlickers who’d just joined up with his father’s men, then hurried across the street. By the time he’d arrived at the old, wooden somon gate, he could feel water sliding into his shirt at the back of his neck; the cloth was drenched when he had reached the stone lanterns before the open door that led into the shrine.

A monk stood in the twilight by a grey stone statue of Buddha, which was surrounded by various small earthen bowls containing flowers, water, food and charred incense sticks that filled the room with a heady scent. He turned around on his naked feet at the sound of Genji’s footsteps. Wide, black-and-orange robes fell down over his shoulders and arms. For some reason Genji had expected an old man, but the monk looked to be about his own age, though the slow, deliberate way he carried himself as he approached Genji made him seem more mature. He wore a mala of heavy brass pearls with delicate decorations etched into them around his neck.

“Good evening. Did the rain catch you out in the open?” he asked.

“Yeah, sort of,” Genji said. “Can I stay? I admit I haven’t been to a temple in a while…”

He tried his most charming smile and the monk raised a brow at him.

“It would not be very compassionate of me to throw you out into the wet and cold, even if you are not a believer,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Take a seat if you want to.”

A few squat wooden benches stood along the walls of the shrine. As Genji sat down, he glanced at the monk again. He wasn’t half-bad looking, muscular in a wiry, ascetic way. His bronze skin contrasted nicely with bright blue eyes. The rows of dots on his forehead that matched the colour of his iris weren’t something Genji could place as belonging to any specific branch of Buddhism, but then he’d never cared much about religion.

“What’s your name?” Genji asked. If he was stuck here with a handsome monk, he may as well make conversation.

“Zenyatta,” the monk said as he sorted out a bunch of white roses in a flat vase by the Buddha’s feet. “And yours?”

“Genji. You don’t come from around here, do you, Zenyatta?”

“No. Is my accent still very noticeable?” Zenyatta asked as he sat down next to Genji.

“Fortunately so. I like how it sounds,” Genji said.

Zenyatta let his fingertip run over one of the metal orbs at his neck.

“I’m from Nepal. I came to Japan with my older brother three years ago.”

“Oh yeah? Is he a priest, too?” Genji asked.

“Actually, yes.” Zenyatta smiled. “I suppose it’s sort of a family tradition now. Our uncle was also a monk.”

“Wouldn’t that tradition end with you? It’s not like you can have children…”

Maybe that was a bit forward, but the priest just chuckled.

“Our order doesn’t actually forbid us from having families, so there may be hope yet. May I ask what you do, Genji? Did your occupation bring you out here at this time, too?”

“I don’t really do normal work.” Hanzo would say that he didn’t do _any_ work, in fact, and Genji could not even really object on that point. “But my family also has traditions.”

“What kind?”

“My last name is Shimada,” Genji answered.

In Hanamura, everyone knew who and what the Shimada were and the fact that they could say their name out loud without any fear of repercussions was both a point of pride and a method of intimidation for the Shimada clan. The police couldn’t have touched Genji’s father if they’d tried, and they had long stopped doing even that.

Zenyatta straightened his back a little. It was an interesting reaction. Most people shrunk back, they didn’t try to make themselves look bigger.

“I see. But you’re not here on business, I hope? It’s just an old shrine.”

“Oh – no. Don’t worry. We wouldn’t do that.”

It was one of his father’s rules to leave temples and churches alone. You had to have some principles, he always said. A man without principles had no direction and people without direction never got anywhere in life.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Genji added, soothingly.

“You didn’t,” Zenyatta said and it sounded astonishingly honest. “If you don’t have business with me, then I guess you were going to meet someone,” the monk added.

His gaze had fallen onto the box of white chocolates in Genji’s hand. He had to grin.

“You are right. It was decided I’m not worth braving the weather for,” he added, with an exaggerated look of sadness on his face.

“Rejection is one of the bitterer parts of life,” Zenyatta answered, slightly bemused once more.

“These shouldn’t go to waste,” Genji said, lifting the chocolates. “Here, you said you’re not chaste, so I’m not breaking any rules. You can have them.”

Again, the monk smiled as he allowed Genji to push the box into his hands.

“Thank you, but I think even celibate monks are allowed to eat chocolate. You need to try a little harder than that to breach the rules.”

“Is that so? I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you would show me what it takes?” Genji asked, voice low.

The monk raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, but while chocolate and assorted physical attentions are not forbidden for me, other things are. You have a way with words, but not enough to make a monk consider a yakuza man.”

Genji looked up in surprise.

“You’re certainly blunt,” he said, smiling. Usually, people danced around it, called it the path, the family, and half a hundred other euphemisms. Saying it so directly could make you complicit or worse, an outspoken enemy.

“Maybe it’s because I’m not from around these parts,” Zenyatta answered, but he didn’t sound like he believed it, especially not with that sharp look in his blue eyes.

A car honked from the side of the street, making Genji raise his head. He had half a mind to tell the guy to wait, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to leave the monk alone for now and return when he did not have his guard up like this. Genji got up and took Zenyatta’s hand without waiting for the monk to offer it to him.

“I think I’ll return. Maybe I’ll pray a little next time.”

“You’re always welcome for that,” the monk said, hiding a smile.

As the car pulled away, Genji saw Zenyatta standing in the doorway to the shrine, looking after them. Genji lifted his hand in a goodbye and grinned at him through the window until the temple vanished in the rear-view mirror.

A yakuza convincing a monk to enjoy his lack of celibacy vows with him sounded like a whole lot of work, but Genji suspected he had a small in with the fox-eyed monk and he’d always liked a challenge.


End file.
